Promises
by ArtsyChick
Summary: "Promise me you won't forget." "I never could." A series of short stories following the budding relationship between Hatake Kakashi and his female teammate, Rin. Featuring love, heartache, and the scent of strawberries.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **So I've always supported KakaRin, even though I knew they would face the same tragic fate as many other "star-crossed lovers." This little set of drabbles was inspired by a lovely illustration on deviantART called "KakaRin: All that I have" by kai-isolated (I'd post a link but ff doesn't like urls). Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

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><p>For as long as she could remember, she had loved him. She loved him since the first time she met him.<p>

She was five years old. It was the second month of school and they had already begun working on basic weapon handling. Like the majority of her classmates, she struggled to hold the shuriken correctly in order to throw with maximum accuracy and inflict maximum damage.

But one boy managed to hit their tree trunk targets every time. His name was Hatake Kakashi.

His accuracy didn't go unnoticed. "Hatake-kun!" barked the teacher. "Help this girl here." The teacher patted her head as Kakashi turned around to stare at her. After a moment, he shrugged and beckoned her closer.

"Show me how you hold it," Kakashi said, handing her a shuriken. She fumbled to get a grip on the sharp little blade and held out her hand, but he shook his head. "You have to hold it like this." Grabbing her fingers, he shifted her grip so she was holding one of the points between her thumb and forefinger. She blushed.

"Then just raise it over your head and throw it, like this." Plucking a shuriken sprinkling the grass around his feet, he lifted his arm and stretched it back before swinging it forward, releasing the weapon so it collided with the tree trunk. "Get it?"

Nodding, she mimicked his actions and released the shuriken when she brought her arm forward. It connected solidly in the trunk, one point buried deep in the bark.

Kakashi smiled and she felt her heart begin to race. "Just like that," he said brightly. That was the extent of their conversation because the teacher shouted at him to help someone else and at her to practice.

It didn't matter. His kindness had won her over. She loved him already.


	2. Chapter 2

Perhaps at the beginning, it was mere infatuation that kept her intrigued with the son of the legendary White Fang. After all, how much affection can be generated from a few short conversations while solving algebra problems together?

Regardless of the exact nature of her feelings, she was nothing short of ecstatic when they were placed on the same genin team. Although he didn't pay much attention to her, she didn't mind. He spent most of his time arguing with Obito, their other teammate, or being lectured by their sensei for his lack of teamwork, but the few moments of kindness he occasionally exhibited were enough to keep her interested and so very much in love.

For a while, everything was perfect. They reached a point of flawless synchronization—when they could perform their very best as a team and their mission success skyrocketed. The privileged few, they received C and B-rank missions more and more often.

Then Minato-sensei was handed a mission that could potentially turn the tide of the war in Konoha's favor and Kakashi was promoted to jounin—the youngest shinobi in Fire history to do so. They still bickered occasionally, but things had massively improved since their first training exercise together.

But the love she had nurtured for eight years took a severe blow when he admitted he was willing to leave her behind for the sake of a mission. Obito's death had only compounded the pain. For months afterward, they couldn't meet each other's gaze. Minato-sensei tried to help them patch up their friendship, but she couldn't bear to look at him and the guilt still gnawed at his heart.

And then something changed. He brought her flowers. He apologized.

"I'm sorry, Rin-chan," he mumbled, staring at his sandals as he held out the handful of wild roses. "For everything. I should've been a better captain and a better friend. I know now that my teammates are the most important thing."

It was humbling to see the great and oft-spoken of Hatake Kakashi acknowledging his faults and apologizing for them. She was touched. Gently prying the flowers from his grip, she buried her nose in the soft pink blooms. "I forgive you," she whispered, meeting his eyes for the first time in three months. "They're beautiful, Kakashi-kun."

He blushed. "I'm glad you like them."

"I do." She reached for his hand and was surprised when he flinched. Flipping over his palm, she saw it was covered with tiny punctures—no doubt from the roses' sharp little thorns. Taking his hand, she let her chakra flow from her skin to his, repairing the damage until his skin was smooth and unblemished again.

"Thanks," he said, holding onto her hand for much longer than necessary.

She smiled. "You're welcome. So I'll see you tomorrow, right? For Sensei's training session?" He nodded. "Promise?"

"I promise." He released her hand and vanished with a handsign. Leaning against the doorframe, she pressed the bouquet to her heart and sighed. She loved him again.

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><p><strong>AN: **I apologize in advance if Kakashi's a little out-of-character...


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **I incorporated the little ending scene from another story I wrote called _Behind the Mask. _Enjoy!

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><p>Her love blossomed further as they became close again. Their second try at friendship was hard and filled with many awkward silences whenever they would accidentally stray onto a topic that reminded them of Obito, but Kakashi made a pointed effort to reestablish their relationship. And she loved him for trying.<p>

She was in a good mood. Normally, Obito's absence added a melancholy tone to their activities, but that day she was happy. She and Kakashi were lying on the grass together. She was watching the clouds and he was snoring quietly beside her.

A raindrop plinked off one of the many metal plates strapped to Kakashi's body and another landed in the center of her forehead. Rolling her head, she whispered his name and nudged his arm.

"What?" he grumbled.

"It's raining."

Groaning, he stretched his back, popping his joints with a series of little cracks, and sat up. The rainfall increased as he pulled her to her feet and they began to meander their way home.

She turned to smile at him and was surprised to see he was glowering at the dirt path. "What's wrong, Kakashi-kun?"

He kicked a rock. "I hate the rain."

"Really?" She looked up at the pale gray sky, letting the cool raindrops freckle her skin. "I love the rain."

"Why?"

"Because it brings the world to life. It turns the world green and new again."

"But doesn't it make you sad?" he protested, raising his head to stare at her. "It reminds me of tears. Like the sky's crying."

She sighed. "That's too depressing."

"My father died on a rainy night," he said quietly.

It was hard to respond to that. Both her parents were alive and well. Sometimes they could be smothering and they didn't understand her role as a kunoichi at all—they were civilians—but she loved them and didn't know what she would do if anything happened to them.

She remembered a conversation she had once shared with her sensei right after Obito died. It had been raining as well. Out of all the advice and kindness he'd imparted that day, one phrase stuck out in her memory.

"Well, you know what they say, don't you?" Kakashi shook his head blankly and she grinned. "There's always sunshine after the rain."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **A small part of this drabble is also based on a pretty illustration on deviantART. It's called "KakaRIn- He looks like sensei" by kitoa. I just had to incorporate it in once I saw it. Anyway, enjoy!

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><p>Time flowed on and she and Kakashi bonded further. They became close. Her love was unrequited, but she didn't care. <em>At least,<em> she thought, _I can call him my best friend._

Then the day came when he confessed he loved her back.

It was the day before Kakashi's next mission. At her insistence, they were visiting the hospital in order to admire Minato-sensei and Kushina-san's baby through the window of the nursery. The baby, whose name was Naruto, was wiggling and blinking impatiently, absorbing the fluorescent lights and the white walls and the other babies cooing and crying around him.

"Isn't he adorable?" she said, waving at the yellow-haired baby.

Kakashi nodded, smiling faintly. "He _is_ pretty cute."

"The nurse said if we come back tomorrow, we can hold him." She crinkled her nose. "She said he's still too new for us to be handling him."

"Really?"

"Yeah." She tapped a finger against the glass, drawing Naruto's attention. He grinned, revealing toothless gums and exuberant cerulean eyes. "He looks just like Sensei," she sighed.

Kakashi made a vague gesture at his own face. "Except for the whiskers." Rolling her eyes playfully, she shoved his shoulder and he chuckled.

"Kushina-san was so lucky," she continued. "Minato-sensei loved her so much. I hope I can find someone who will love me that much."

After a beat of silence, Kakashi mumbled something so softly she almost missed it. "What if someone already did?"

She turned to stare at him, furrowing her brow in confusion. "Are you saying someone already loves me?" He nodded. "Who?"

He ducked his head to stare at his sandals. "I think I do."

She gazed at him, her expression alternating between shock and excitement. "What?" she finally asked.

"I don't really understand it," he continued quietly, "but I know that whenever you leave me I feel so… lost."

She'd tried to brush it off on their sensei's recent demise. Kakashi _did _feel lost, which was understandable, but not because of anything to do with her. It was because they were the last remaining members of Team Minato. And the admission was so sudden that she was afraid this was simply a way of keeping a firm hold on the only person he had left. Plus he was fourteen. Who knew if his feelings were true or just a product of raging hormones?

"I mean it, Rin," he continued, as if able to read the disbelief in her eyes. Perhaps he could. Perhaps that's why he reached for her. "I really do care about you."

But she didn't believe him. "Go on your mission," she whispered, stepping away from the window and the inviting circle of his arms. "Tell me again when you get back." And she turned and walked away, tears in her eyes.

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><p>He told her when he returned. Then he told her again. He continued to tell her he loved her until the words came easily to his lips, until he was comfortable with the confession. And still she didn't believe him.<p>

"How do I know you mean it?" she snapped one night as they were drenched in a vicious downpour. "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"Because if I didn't mean it, I wouldn't have said it in the first place," he retorted, his mismatched eyes glinting in the rain. He stuck out his arm in an effort to take her hand or at least touch her, but she flinched away. Thrusting his hand back to his side, he said, "Why won't you believe me?"

"What changed?" she asked suddenly, ignoring his question. "Why do you love me now? Why didn't you love me then?"

He sighed shakily, threading his fingers through his dripping hair. "I think I changed," he said finally. "Your friendship's important to me, Rin. You understand me when no one else can. It just took me nine years to realize it."

Her heart started to beat a little faster. "Friendship and love aren't the same thing."

"I know. But I don't view you like Obito. You mean so much more than that."

To think she meant more to him than Uchiha Obito, the boy he considered his best friend and whose death he still hopelessly believed he could've prevented, was a powerful statement indeed.

"Just please say you love me back," he said with a cracking voice. "It's killing me inside not knowing how you feel."

"You really love me?" she whispered. "Really? Truly?"

"Yes."

"Then you have to do something for me."

He reached for her hand again and this time she let him take it. "Anything."

"You have to kiss me." He couldn't pull down his mask fast enough.


	5. Chapter 5

From then on it was wonderful. Kakashi had always been easy to love. His naturally attractive features combined with his continuously warming personality and the emotional damage resulting from losing so many loved ones had made him irresistible to women the world over. But she had loved him long before he was charming and kind, back when he was still indifferent toward her very existence. The only difference now was that Kakashi loved her back.

Technically, they weren't supposed to be dating. Relationships between teammates were frowned upon because they built emotional ties that could be used to an enemy's advantage as well as compromise a shinobi's rationality. But for someone who once believed emotions were useless pieces of baggage that only cluttered a ninja's brain, Kakashi didn't seem to mind.

She didn't care either. After having waited nine years for this moment, it was pure bliss to be able to hold Kakashi's hand in public, to introduce him as her boyfriend, to kiss him whenever and for however long she wanted. The only downside was that they were no longer allowed to go on missions together, but even that didn't faze her. She knew he would've been too much of a distraction; it's hard to see weapons being hurled at your head when your eyes are thoroughly blinded by love.

After two years of happiness, she broached a subject she had been yearning to discuss since their first kiss.

"What do you think about moving in together?"

Kakashi started choking on his ramen noodles. Ayame, the owner's daughter, bounded over with a handful of napkins and a glass of sloshing water. When he had taken a drink, he looked at her with a dumbfounded expression. She ignored it and repeated her question.

"Are you sure?" he asked dubiously. "What do your parents think?"

Her parents had left Konoha right after the Kyuubi attack; they thought it too dangerous and unstable for civilians like themselves to stay. Her father had tried to convince her to move with them, but she had soundly refused. _Kakashi needs me,_ she argued, _and so does the village. I can't abandon them now. _Because of this, she hadn't seen them in two years. Who knows how they would feel about her shinobi beau, let alone proposing to move in with him.

So she shrugged. "They agree with my judgment."

Kakashi remained unconvinced. "I don't know if I'm ready for that," he hissed, mindful of the seven-year-old dutifully wiping the counter while trying to eavesdrop. "We haven't even slept together yet."

At his last comment, her face began to warm. "So? Who says we need to have done _that _to be ready to live together?" When he returned her question with a doubtful expression, she clapped a hand over his. "We're shinobi, Kakashi-kun. We need to take what we can get where we can get it because otherwise we'll miss the chance to have it." His eyes dropped to his bowl and she sighed. "Besides, if it doesn't work out we can live separately again."

There was a long pause that dragged on for several minutes. Ayame had given up discretion in order to stare blatantly at her partner, just as anxious as she was for him to answer. Finally, he mumbled, "I guess we can give it shot."

Throwing her arms around his neck, she kissed his cheek. "I promise you won't regret it," she said happily, opting to kiss his ramen-tasting mouth next.

He didn't.


	6. Chapter 6

It was strange at first to see two toothbrushes beside her sink and extra uniforms in her closet. Once she used his razor by mistake and left tiny cuts up and down her legs, and he often mistook her shampoo bottle for his own and exited the bathroom smelling like a strawberries. They fought occasionally, but that was to be expected. He didn't put the toilet seat down or put his dirty laundry in the washer, so she threw a fit. She confiscated his romance novels—which she deemed to be pornographic garbage—so he stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

But overall she enjoyed the newfound intimacy afforded by sharing the same living quarters. She liked cozying up beside him on the couch or sitting with him at the table and talking for hours on end without having to worry about when he needed to leave. She especially liked wrapping her arms around his smooth, well-muscled chest and falling asleep to the sound of his steady, powerful heartbeat. Her love for him grew exponentially after that, which is why a prolonged absence and his brush with death affected her so profoundly.

Kakashi had joined the ANBU Black Ops when he was fourteen, a few months before the Kyuubi attack. His missions were violent and dangerous, and she knew many capable shinobi had met their end through ANBU. But Kakashi's lack of concern for his own well-being worried her the most.

"You have to come back," she told him each time he slipped the ceramic mask over his face.

"Of course I'll come back," he replied cheerily. "I always do, don't I?"

"Promise me you will."

He sighed, but indulged her. "I promise, Rin-chan." Then he would kiss her soundly on the lips and disappear silently into the night.

She continued to believe him because he _did _come back; granted, it was not always healthy or in one piece, but he always returned to the power of her healing and the safety of her arms.

Then came the time he almost didn't come home. He had been scheduled to return in two weeks, but the marked date passed by and there was still no sign of him. She waited a week more before approaching the hokage, who kindly informed her that the mission was taking longer than planned.

Another week came and went with her stress increasing dramatically with every sunset. She couldn't eat without feeling sick with worry. She couldn't sleep without tortuous nightmares plaguing her dreams. She couldn't focus on her work knowing he was out there possibly hurt, potentially dying. By the time the fifth week passed she was numb with anxiety and restricted to her apartment after having misaligned a patient's broken finger in such a way that it had to be broken again in order to be reset.

Six weeks. She had stopped counting because it hurt too much. But six weeks passed and then he and his team came stumbling through the gates. Their mission, in the end, had been a success. No fatalities on Konoha's side. But each ninja was gravely injured—Kakashi himself was sporting several fractured ribs and a shattered ankle, among other wounds—and spent two nights in the hospital before she was allowed in to see him.

When she parted the curtain guarding his bed, she gasped in a mixture of horror and relief. He was so covered in bandages he looked more like a mummy than a person, but that didn't stop her from dropping to her knees beside the bed and bawling into the sheets.

"I d-didn't think you'd c-come back," she sobbed as Kakashi patted her head like she was a child.

"I told you I would, didn't I?" he whispered, his voice hoarse. "You made me promise." He kissed her hair tenderly. "I'm glad you waited for me."

Rubbing her eyes furiously, she glared at him. "If you _ever_ scare me like that again, I swear to God I'll kill you myself."

He chuckled and enveloped her in a one-armed hug. "There will never be a need, Rin-chan," he murmured brightly.

With a sigh of relief, she hugged him back. He had kept his promise. He was once again safely ensconced within her arms.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **The reason for the T-rating - this chapter features a little sexual content (all implied, nothing explicit) but I felt I should warn you. Onward!

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><p>Perhaps one of the most pivotal moments in their relationship—besides the love confessions, the moving-in, and the many near-death experiences of both parties—was the night she gave him something she treasured above all else. To her, it was a symbol of everlasting love and the person she gave it to would become the eternal keeper of her heart. She guarded it fiercely; a gift so precious was not something to be taken lightly.<p>

But the day finally came when she was ready to present it to someone and she was sure she had found someone worthy of accepting it.

She had just returned from a mission. It was difficult and emotionally draining. A mysterious plague had broken out on a little island just off the coast and although she had been rushed there and was able to cure the disease once she discovered its source—unsurprisingly, it was yet another poisoned well—many people, particularly children, had perished under her watch. She had spent several nights weeping endlessly, but by the time she returned she was exhausted.

Kakashi met her at the gate and embraced her soundlessly, somehow understanding her need to remain silent. Words couldn't convey her sadness or the heavy weight of guilt settling on her shoulders. After a short stop at the hospital to make sure she hadn't caught the illness and accidentally passed it on to her boyfriend, he let her climb onto his back and carried her home.

For the first night, he left her alone. He didn't force her to discuss it; instead, he talked idly about his dogs and Gai's recent challenge against him and other village gossip. She tried to participate as best she could, but her heart wasn't in it. They went to bed early, but she couldn't fall asleep so she wiled away the hours brushing back his bangs in order to study the scar slicing through his left eye.

The second day was relatively the same: she remained silent while he filled the day with light chatter and easy banter, inviting her to speak but never pushing her to. On the third night however, it was becoming too much.

Flopping onto the couch, she watched as he popped in a romantic comedy—another not-so-subtle attempt to cheer her up. Art mirrored life as rain drenched the hero and heroine in the opening scene, while outside her window lightning crackled and water streaked the glass in haphazard lines.

After sitting through thirty minutes of passionate arguments and even more passionate make-out sessions, she turned to him and blurted out, "Aren't you going to ask me what happened?"

He shook his head and squeezed her waist. "I hate being pressured to talk when I don't feel like it," he replied. "But I'm ready to listen whenever you do. It's easier to speak when you're not expected to."

Her lip quivered. "That's so sweet." He shrugged, never taking his eyes off the television screen, but his compassion moved her so much that the next thing she knew she was explaining her mission as tears streamed down her face.

"The worst part," she murmured sorrowfully, "was telling the families when I couldn't save someone. Sometimes they were angry and shouted at me. Sometimes they sobbed just like this. And sometimes they didn't say anything at all." She shook her head helplessly. "I'd hoped it wouldn't hurt as much to lose someone you never knew. But it hurts just the same."

From his silence, she knew he didn't know how to respond. But it didn't matter. The fact that he was there with her, listening quietly as his hands rubbed her back and shoulders soothingly, was enough.

And then he said something that proved to her that her infatuation from all those years ago wasn't going to end in vain. "I heard this quote once," he began. "'Men love because they are afraid of themselves, afraid of the loneliness that lives in them, and need someone in whom they can lose themselves as smoke loses itself in the sky.'" Slipping a finger beneath her chin, he tilted her head up to meet his steady gaze. "That's what happens to me when I'm with you."

Sliding her hands up the side of his head to cradle his perfect face, she leaned forward and kissed him. Then she kissed him again, and again, until he was gently pushing her down to the couch cushions and showering her face and neck in kisses. Burying a hand in his coarsely cut locks, she stilled his movements and whispered, "Let's move to the bed."

He paused and stared at her, not missing the implications in her simple statement. "Are you sure?"

She nodded. "I've never been more sure in my life."

"If we do this, you know you can't take it back."

Smiling, she cupped the back of his head to draw him down for another long kiss. "I'm glad you're worried," she said sweetly, "but I want this. And I want you. I love you, remember?"

Gathering her in his arms, he lifted her up and started heading for the bedroom. "I remember."

When he placed her on the soft mattress, she kissed him again. "Promise me you won't forget," she murmured.

"I never could."

"Promise me."

He nodded. "I promise."

As the hero in the movie caught the heroine before she boarded a train in order to profess his devotion, her breathless cry of Kakashi's name echoed in the empty apartment. Rain drenching his clothes, the hero leaned down to seal his profession with a kiss just as Kakashi did the same. Both she and the heroine smiled.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **A little more implied SC (basically the first sentence). Anywho...

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><p>Just as she had hoped, their escalation of intimacy did not dim their love but ignited her passion. The majority of their nights were now devoted to fevered lessons in love-making with Kakashi showing her the depths of her desire and teaching her to take him down with her. She had never felt closer to him.<p>

Other than that, their lives didn't change. Perhaps she was a little more giggly than before and his hands always seemed to be roving aimlessly across her skin now, but he didn't leave her like some men did once they got into a girl's pants. He promised he loved her long before they did the deed and long before she ever planned to give her virginity to him, and he seemed content to stay.

The night before one of the biggest and toughest missions of her career, they were lying in bed together. Kakashi's arm was flopped across her bare hip and their fingers were intertwined and they were sleeping peacefully as a storm raged outside. An enormous clap of thunder shook the walls and jostled her out of a sound slumber, and she groggily sat up. Rain pounded against the windowpane as lightning flashed, highlighting every crease in the sheets. For some reason, it scared her.

As her body tensed up, she felt Kakashi stir beside her. "Something wrong, Rin-chan?" he mumbled, squeezing her hand and leaning up to kiss her neck.

She shivered, but not because of the sensation of his lips on her throat. "I just have a bad feeling."

"What kind of bad feeling?" He continued to lazily press kisses along her skin.

"Like a bad omen. Something ominous coming."

"Probably just nerves for your mission tomorrow."

She nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right." And because she was nervous, she gave in to Kakashi's languid seduction and let him banish her stomach-wrenching anxiety.

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><p>The next morning, dew soaking her sandals and water dripping from the trees to glisten in her hair, she embraced him tightly as they stood just inside the village gates. "I'll be back before you know it," she whispered, fingering a few silvery strands.<p>

He nodded and kissed her forehead. "We'll go to Ichiraku."

She grinned. "I love you Kakashi-kun."

"I love you too."

"See you in three weeks." Trying not to cry, she pulled out of his strong arms and turned to join her teammates waiting for her. She didn't notice then, but she would remember later that he didn't make her promise to come back.


	9. Chapter 9

She tried saying her body was going into shock, but she couldn't get her mouth to form the words. Even if she could, they weren't listening. They were all panicking now and with good reason: their only medic was bleeding out.

With jerky movements, she shifted her shaking hands up to her stomach and tried to apply pressure and administer healing chakra as best she could. The green tendrils were feeble and pale, wavering unsteadily from her fingertips to her wound. It was no good. She was dying.

Letting her hands fall back, she closed her eyes. She pictured Kakashi's bare face, grinning almost idiotically at her, always surprised and so ridiculously happy every time she murmured, 'I love you.' Those words were important to him for a number of reasons, but mostly because they meant there was someone left on earth who still cared for him. But with her death, she knew he would be alone.

"Kakashi," she gasped, although there was no one there to listen, "I promise you'll be okay."

She could almost hear his protests. _No I won't. No matter how many people you lose, the pain never eases._

"I know," she replied quietly. "But you… have to stay strong. The village needs you. You… have to protect them."

_But without you, I'm nothing. I'll have no one._

"You promised Obito. You promised… to be his eyes. To see the future for him. You have to see the future… for all of us… Obito and Sensei and I… because we can't see it ourselves."

"Rin-san!" someone shouted. Hands touched her, jammed into her wounds and tried to staunch the blood. Instead of helping, it sent pain shooting through her limbs.

"Promise me… you'll see the future for us," she whispered.

"What?" the person attempting to treat her asked. But she was too far gone. The world was dimming around her as droplets of water splattered against her cheeks, but whether they were tears from the sky or her wannabe savior she would never know.

_I just wish I could see you one more time, Kakashi-kun. _

"Can you hear me?"

_I love you. I always have._

"Stay with me, Rin-san."

_And I always will._

"Rin-san!"

Everything faded to white. Then the rain began to fall.


	10. Epilogue

"Happy birthday, Rin-chan."

The grass squelched beneath his sandals as he approached the simple gravestone. One of many, it helped form a long line of creamy blocks, each bearing a heartfelt inscription. A vase of fresh flowers stood on the grave's stone base, their colorful petals waving gently in the breeze. Probably a gift from her parents.

Kneeling down, he dug in his pockets until his hand closed around a short red candle that was supposed to smell like strawberries. Placing it beside the vase, he pulled a lighter from his hip pouch and flicked it open, letting the flame devour the wick until it caught fire.

"Sorry I'm late," he murmured, the smoke from the candle curling into his silvery hair. "I had to walk my students home. Have I told you about them?"

The candle flickered. "You'd like them, I'm sure." He smiled a little beneath his mask as he settled into the plush, damp grass. "Naruto looks just like Sensei, but he behaves like Kushina-san." He chuckled under his breath as the shadows cast by the candle danced merrily across the ivory stone, as if laughing with him. "And I have an Uchiha, but he's nothing like Obito. He's a little cold and quiet, but he's a good kid. They all are."

He tilted his head up to gaze at the dim stars beginning to peer out from the big blue depths of space. "There's a girl on my squad too. Her name's Sakura. She reminds me of you." He sighed. "She's a pretty girl—intelligent and full of potential. Her chakra control's excellent. Maybe she'll be a medic someday, just like you."

His voice died away as he studied the candle. A pool of glistening wax was forming around the wick and had already begun to stream down the sides. The label had indeed been correct; perhaps it wasn't the smell of real fruit, but the burning candle's scent was certainly reminiscent of Rin's shampoo.

"I wish I had been there, Rin," he whispered regretfully, a phrase he had repeated more times in his life than any other, his own sorrowful mantra. "Maybe I could've done something to save you."

The wind stirred, jarring the flame's elaborate dance so it wiggled frantically, like a person shaking their head. He rolled his eyes at the ridiculous notion that she might be sending him a message through a guttering candle flame.

Sighing again, he looked around at the quiet cemetery. "So this is the future, Rin-chan," he said. "What do you think? Is it everything you hoped it would be?"

There was no response, but he hadn't expected one. Instead, the wind rustled the grass brushing against his legs and far off in the distance, there was the low rumble of thunder. "Maybe it's going to rain," he murmured, looking up just in time for a raindrop to land in his exposed right eye.

Rubbing at it, he moved to stand up, letting his fingertips ghost along the edge of the cold stone. "At least that means tomorrow will be sunny, right?"

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he smiled at the candle and the delicate vase. "Give my regards to Sensei and Obito, hmm? And my folks if you see them."

Spinning on his heel, he left the cemetery, pausing momentarily to say a small prayer at the rest of his loved ones' graves. As he passed between the two stone statues marking the entrance, the rain began to fall harder until his uniform was soaking. He would suffer from sneezing fits all the next day, a sight his students would find extremely amusing.

But the little red candle burned throughout the night, only sizzling to silence when the hungry flame had burned through the stump of scented wax. It oozed across the stone and hardened with the cold pattering of rain. If someone had walked by the next morning, they would notice the dripping flowers and the solid dull wax that, when viewed from a great height, faintly resembled the character for love.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **The end! I hope you enjoyed it! Stay tuned...


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